


Storm King's Thunder: Paragon

by valamerys



Series: Storm King's Thunder campaign fic [4]
Category: Dungeons & Dragons (Roleplaying Game)
Genre: Bargains with gods, Diverging timelines, Dual POV, Gen, Resurrection, theseus drinking 'love my friends' juice
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-22
Updated: 2020-05-22
Packaged: 2021-03-03 01:08:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,370
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24326290
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/valamerys/pseuds/valamerys
Summary: Theseus dies and then, fortunately for everyone else, un-dies
Series: Storm King's Thunder campaign fic [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1659832
Comments: 2
Kudos: 5





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> While the Stormchasers managed to escape Mirabar after Theseus was identified as the murderer prince of Waterdeep, they were captured shortly after by the brutal General Chuz in the belly of the recently-overthrown Xantharl’s Keep. Chuz seems to have a personal grudge against Theseus. After a rigged fight between the two in which Theseus prayed to the god Tyr for help, Chuz struck a fatal blow against him with his own trident.

The general pulls the trident from Theseus’s chest, and Theseus crumples to the floor.

He doesn’t feel the impact of the fall; agony overwhelms him as the triptych of wounds send their wrath searing through his veins. His pierced heart isn’t a heart at all anymore but a star, hot-white and and burning in his chest, and immediately, innately, he recognizes the radiant tenor of it: the same sacred light he wields with so much vigor. Is this what Kella Darkhope felt as he unmade her? The dwarven king?

His father?

Theseus’s vision swims, blackens; a pair of boots, words heard as if from a great distance:  _ “Load them into the wagons.” _

Whose voice is that? He should remember. 

_ “And the… body?” _

Rekhien would know whose voice it is. Rekhien is good at remembering things. But where is Rekhien? Theseus’s thoughts unravel in the pain, and the bright-clean agony is crushing, too much to breathe through, too much to— 

_ “Leave it.” _

Something presses on him, on his burning heart and broken body, something gray and heavy. Far, far too heavy for him to hold on to anything else— and so the fear and the fury and the guilt and the loneliness slip away from him, lost in the darkness.

In their absence, the immolation feels like something he barely has a word for: peace.

  
  


***

  
  


The general pulls the trident from Theseus’s chest, and Theseus crumples to the floor.

Marin’s throat is already scraped raw, but she cries his name again into the gag, twists and strains wildly against the hands holding her. None of it  _ matters _ , they can’t  _ do anything _ , but she can’t stop herself from trying, wrecked with desperation that burns hot in her chest. This can’t be happening, Theseus can’t die here, not after everything, not like this.

Chuz looks down at Theseus, wipes blood from his own cheek. The spikes of the trident in his hand gleam wet and dark as a nightmare in the dim light.

Marin reaches instinctively, helplessly, for the magic just out of her grasp, yells the strain of her effort into the gag. At the sound of her muffled cry the general’s head snaps up. Tears cling to Marin’s eyelashes and blur her vision, but even so, his expression bears down on her, warped with a furious, vacant violence. The man is mad, he must be.

One of the Axes, behind Phyn, shuffles uncomfortably. “Sir? The prisoners?”

The corner of his mouth curls back into a grotesque sneer before he turns to the man who spoke. “Load them into the wagons.”

“And the… body?”

“Leave it.”

Theseus collapsed facedown, turned away; Marin can see only blonde hair and his unnatural stillness. Blood pools beneath him, ribbons of red reaching along the channels of mortar between the stones.  _ The body.  _ A fresh surge of panicked horror spikes through her.

The guards begin to haul the three of them to their feet, and Marin wrenches a shoulder from their grip, muscles aching, everywhere that’s tied with rope a sear of pain. _ Help me with this fucking devil,  _ the Axe behind her growls to another, but she barely hears it. They’ve almost died so many times that surely if she can just get to Theseus, get an arm free, get a spell off— he can’t be dead yet, he  _ can’t be _ ; there’s always more time, another chance— 

A second Axe grabs her opposite arm and pulls her back. Before she can muster the strength to fight it, her gaze meets Rekhien’s, being shoved along behind her. His eyes are wide and still, and he doesn’t resist.

And if Rekhien isn’t trying, there’s no hope left. 

The tears in her eyes spill over, and a sob burns in her lungs. She led him here. She told Theseus and Phyn to keep lying and  _ stay put _ and all but begged Rekhien to help her. It was her magic, her plan that did this. If she’d been smarter or stronger; if she’d tried harder, then maybe— 

“What the—” 

At Chuz’s voice, Marin turns her head, and her heart all but stops.

Theseus rises from the ground as if levitated. His head rolls limply to the side, his limbs droop awkward and lifeless, and yet the body floats upward until his boots leave the ground, blood dripping from the leather.

The Axe at her side draws a sword and another mutters darkly of necromancy. General Chuz steps forward, his form drawn into a hateful lurch, a vein jumping in his neck.

“What is this,” He hisses, his countance unhinged. The body settles midair and slowly rights itself. The general whirls on the three of them, on his men, and brandishes the bloody trident. “ _ Who’s doing this?! _ ”

Theseus’s eyes open, but they’re not eyes: they’re pits of pure light, twin stars. A glow starts deep in his chest, the sepulchral shadow of his ribcage cast through the leather armor. Chuz yells for weapons, for magic, for  _ something _ as radiance breaks like a hungry wound across Theseus’s skin, brighter and brighter and suddenly Marin can’t see because the room is  _ incandescent _ with it _ ;  _ like the sun itself has consumed him. Brilliant, blinding shafts of illumination cut the dark chill of the room like golden blades, but the heat of it against Marin’s body is gentle, the warmth of daylight.

Around her, though, the screaming starts.

  
  


***

  
  


Somewhere in the darkness, Theseus begins to come back to himself, one piece at a time. Nerves wake in hands and legs and lungs in slow succession, and he takes a rasping breath.

The pain is gone. Its absense makes him foreign in his own body, limbs light and heavy all at once as his senses return. The air is different, he realizes sluggishly; the rancid damp of sewer and metalic taint of blood are replaced by something sweet and cool. And there’s something else, a sound that pierces him with a homesick ache— one he hasn’t heard since he turned away from his friend’s body made a banquet for crows in the midday sun.

The ocean thunders distantly against the shore, and Theseus opens his eyes.

It’s twilight-dark, and his face is mashed inelegantly into a patch of grass. He musters enough coordination to move into a sitting position, arms stiff and clumsy, like he’s slept too long. Or maybe he’s still asleep: lush flowers around him rustle beneath a velvet-purple sky that sweeps down to meet the beach, the sand there glittering as if made of crushed diamonds. Silver stars dot the sky, too bright and too many for this time of evening.

He should be panicking, probably. Where is he? How did he get here? A vague sense of urgency hums at the back of his mind, but he feels slow and strange, unable to grasp it. It’s all he can do to push himself to his feet, afraid the movement will disrupt the dream. Which is surely what it is; no flowers like this grow in Faerûn, a riot of improbable shapes and exotic colors, with leaves like bursts of light, thorns that grow in elegant spirals.

Starlight glints off a polished marble balustrade to his left, up a serene hill that overlooks the ocean. He approaches it, and half expects his hand to fall through the railing, but it’s chill and solid to the touch. 

Beneath his feet, the beach gives way to cliffside; the ocean’s endless reach stretches out before it, and that, at least, is familiar. But beyond the horizon lie two massive mountains, one on either side of his view, misty blue with the distance and the half-light. They rise proud and jagged so far into the sky that even when he cranes his head, he can’t make out the peaks.

A voice interrupts him. “So you’re the one who’s been carting around my axe.”

Theseus’s heart leaps into his throat and he whirls around, hand flexing to grip a weapon that isn’t there.

The speaker is an older man. But tall, taller than Theseus, clad in colorless robes, with the bulk of a warrior and a long grey-white beard. His words don’t register, at least in part beause Theseus is distracted by the man’s left wrist, which ends abruptly: he’s missing a hand.

He indicates the landscape with his mismatched arms. “What do you think of Lunia?”

“I… I think it’s beautiful,” Theseus stammers, half surprised that words come out of his mouth at all. Trying not to gawk, he tears his gaze away and looks instead towards the flowers, the mountains.  _ Lunia _ . There’s the sense that the name should mean something to him, but it doesn’t.

But if he’s not dreaming, if this is something real— 

He remembers, suddenly: Mirabar, the keep, the prison cells. Chuz’s twisted grin and the smothering darkness. Cold grips his chest, and phantom pains prick at the three points the trident pierced him. 

The man seems to be waiting for him to speak.

“Is this... heaven?” Theseus manages, lungs tight. “Am I dead?”

Somehow, he hasn’t noticed until now: the man has no eyes, only two black pits with scars for eyelids. Theseus freezes.

“No. And yes.” The man hums, unconcerned with his lack of eyes, or with Theseus’s fear. “This is my court. Your prayer has earned you judgement here. Shall we weigh your life on the scales of justice, Prince Theseus?”

Theseus knows an eyeless face,  _ this _ eyeless face, one framed with wild silver hair and a strong jaw. Knows it from altar carvings and temple walls and the yellowed pages of prayer books— but this can’t be— 

When he doesn’t answer, can’t, the man lifts an eyebrow and adds, “I assure you, the scales are metaphorical.”

“You’re— the god Tyr,” Theseus chokes out around the surge of panic climbing up his spine.

The god’s face splits into a conspiratorial smile, and wrinkles manifest around the empty eyesockets. “Well, they don’t call me _The_ _Maimed God_ because of a stubbed toe.”

Theseus drops to one knee almost involuntarily, into the deepest bow he knows, fist held taught across his chest, head ducked, eyes to the ground. Even now it’s as easy as breathing to fall into, a position written in his bones by the hard marble floor of his father’s throne room. But even his father didn’t incite the kind of raw terror that hammers in his chest now, in the presence of a  _ god— _ he thought perhaps his prayer would lend him divine strength, he didn’t think— 

The humor evaporates from Tyr’s voice, as cold and vast as the ocean. “Do get up, Theseus. I didn’t bring you here to see you grovel.”

Theseus hesitates, muscle memory resisting. He chances a glance upward. “Your… holiness?”

Tyr looks down at him, expression placid. “‘Lord Tyr’ will do.”

“Lord Tyr, I—” He’s caught short for a moment, struck with the sheer weight of speaking to a god. But there’s only one thing that matters, one reason he’s here. Tears prick at his eyes, and he swallows. “Can you help my friends?”

“Can  _ you _ ?” The god responds simply. 

When Theseus has no answer for that, Tyr turns away from his kneeling form. “Walk with me,” He says, with the confidence of someone who is never refused. “I get to show the gardens off so rarely.”

  
  


***

  
  


“He’s alive.”

Phyn exhales shakily where he’s crouched beside Theseus’s body. “Barely. Pulse is slow. But he’s alive, somehow, thank the gods.”

Rekhien reaches down and extends a gloveless hand over Theseus’s mouth, feeling for breath. Marin can do nothing but slump to her knees next to him, weak with the relief that floods her.  _ He’s alive. _

She’d been so, so certain he wasn’t, when the light faded and his body fell a second time, Chuz and his Axes reduced to ash and charred bone fragments around them. He certainly  _ looks _ dead: the singed, smoldering remains of his armor and clothes reveal skin mottled with arcane burns and bruises. His lips are pale and cracked, the delicate flesh around his eyes purpling and swollen. But the three wounds from the trident are closed, turned to thin scars, and his chest barely—  _ barely— _ rises and falls. Marin swallows fresh tears, a smile that almost hurts breaking across her face.

Lulu noses at Theseus’s cheek with a whine. Phyn rubs her head soothingly, his touch gentle around the bloodied fur at her neck.

A metalic clanging sounds from the next hallway, and all four of them jump. Rekhien is upright with a hand on his knife in an instant. “We need to leave. What’s back there?”

Phyn gets to his feet. “There’s another prisoner—”

The sound is followed by an echoey, inaudible shout, and Rekhien lets out a low swear. “Warvel’s probably locked up too. And we need our stuff back. We should—”

Marin makes eye contact with Phyn and nods before Rekhien can finish the thought. “I’ll stay with him. Go.”

They take off for the back of the dungeon, and Marin grips Theseus’s hand. Despite the burns, his skin is cold to the touch, and she places her other hand atop his, tries to warm it.

It’s a familiar position. She sat with him like this when he was poisoned in the Ten Towns, held his hand while he trembled and sweat, unconcious, as the antidote worked its way through him.  _ But that time wasn’t my fault _ , she thinks, and something twists low in her gut. None of them could have prevented the poison on a frost giant’s blade. But this? Theseus wouldn’t have  _ died _ — much less come back as some kind of radiant beacon of vengeance, whatever that  _ was— _ if she hadn’t staged the world’s worst rescue attempt.

Theseus would probably argue that point. When he wakes up, she imagines he’ll blame  _ himself _ for putting the rest of them in danger, the noble angst in full force, and Rekhien will complain about his brooding. She almost laughs at the thought, but Theseus is so  _ still _ where he lies, and the impulse is crushed by a renewed urge to cry.

Even with his last breath, he told them to run. He wouldn’t have held it against Rekhien and Marin if they’d just left. Neither would Phyn. She can’t imagine having done that, letting Rekhien convince her to abandon them— but would the outcome have been any better if she had?

Maybe there was no right choice for any of them this time, no clean way out. Only madmen and miracles.

Loud voices emanate from the hall, followed by the scrape of metal and clank of chains. Phyn and Rekhien reemerge into the main chamber, followed by a Lulu, a distinctly shaken Warvel, and an angry-looking, bloodied dwarf Marin has never seen before.

“Who... is this?” She asks, as Phyn passes out their retrieved weapons, straps his bow to his back over his prison clothes.

“Narbeck Horn,” The dwarf says gruffly, and surveys the wrecked room with a livid eye, despite looking nearly as haggard as Theseus. “And I’d like to know what in  _ every hell _ has been going on with my keep.”

“It’s a long story,” Rekhien grunts as he dislodges the sewer grate, “That we can tell while we’re  _ getting the fuck out of here _ .”

Marin gives Theseus’s hand a final squeeze before relinquishing his grip to help Phyn hoist him upright. Whatever the choices that brought them here, somehow he’s still alive, and the rest of them are free and whole, and they are so gods-damned lucky.

_ Hang on, Theseus, _ she thinks desperately, feeling his pulse flutter as they carry him, half stumbling, through the tunnels. _ Just a little bit longer. Please, please hang on. _


	2. Chapter 2

The winding paths and endless rows of otherworldly foliage quickly become dizzying, and Theseus sticks close to Tyr’s side. The confused terror dulls only to a thrum of low panic, but he bites back the words that rise to his tongue. There is nothing to be gained from making demands of a god.

They round a corner into a wide courtyard overlooking the sea. Vast gems cut into shining facets, easily a dozen feet tall, interrupt the flowering hedges and emerald-green brush at random intervals, as if they too grow there.

“I’ve been working on the gardens for three centuries.” Tyr reaches out his good hand to cup one of the flowers as they meander past. “Torm and Ilmater will tell you theirs are finer, but does duty beget growth? Does suffering?”

_ Does justice?  _ Theseus thinks, unsure what the god is getting at, but stays quiet.

They pass one of the gems, and Tyr is shadowed by his likeness: the crystals are so polished that they reflect the garden, and the god, sharply in their facets. Tyr says something else, but Theseus doesn’t hear him, his attention suddenly caught on his own image.

Iridescent reflections of himself glint back at him from the fragmented surfaces of the gem— three of them, head to foot, as if he stands before tinted mirrors. But none are quite right. 

The real Theseus— that is, the version of him standing in the garden— is still wearing the ill-fitting leather armor Chuz gave him, pierced through at three points in the chest. But the leftmost reflection wears simple, dirty vestments. Peasant’s clothing. The rightmost reflection wears Waterdhavian armor, less elaborate than Theseus’s royal ceremonial plate, but hardier than the kind he trained in, meant for true battle. The design is familiar, but he can’t quite place it.

The middle reflection, though, makes him stop short: in it he wears a dull black cloak over travel clothes and simple chain mail, his beard neater than it’s been in months, his cheeks fuller. And this version of himself is one he recognizes.

This was how he looked when he fled Waterdeep.

Theseus steps closer and reaches out to the center image, testing it. All three raise their arm in synchronicity. An arcane aura hums from the stone, but it’s alien, like nothing he’s ever felt. He opens his mouth to ask Tyr, but before the words form, he presses his hand to the smooth surface, meeting the center reflection’s palm.

At the contact, his body jolts and his 

vision 

goes 

white.

The howl of magic barrels through him, and in a heartbeat Tyr is gone, the garden is gone— a weightlessness overtakes Theseus, and his hand is now pressed to nothing at all. But the blinding bright isn’t total; his sight clears and he makes out shapes, the walls of a familiar place. A familiar  _ prison _ . Just not the one in Xantharl’s Keep. Or Mirabar.

_ “Should we attack?” _ Ajax asks, tense and hushed. __

Some fifteen yards away, the robed silhouettes Theseus knows to be Cronos and Aethre interrogate a hooded figure tied to a chair, their voices sinister murmurs that echo off the stone. 

He’s back in Waterdeep, in the Black Order’s secret prison. On the night he killed the king.

_ “We can’t take them both,”  _ Achilles says darkly, from his other side. 

Their words are just as he remembers them, the scene a perfect recreation. But something is wrong, even beyond the way he feels like he’s moving through water. Cronos strikes the captive and their noise of pain is strange, familiar; and then Aethre pulls back the figure’s hood, and if Theseus thought he could make a sound he might cry out.

In Phlaris’s place, Phyn glares up at his captors, blood running from his nose, his long brassy hair tangled around his shoulders. And true to his role, his eyes flicker to Theseus’s hiding spot and find him.

_ Go for the one on the right _ , Phyn’s voice sounds in his head.  _ I’ll take the other one. _

Ajax jostles his shoulder. _ “Theseus?”  _

He can’t breathe. This is wrong. Phyn’s gaze bores into his as Aethre draws back for another strike, and Theseus thinks he might be sick.  _ Go for the one on the right. I’ll take the other one, _ Phyn repeats, more urgent. 

If he knows his lines, Theseus supposes he does too.

“Cronos,” he manages to say to Ajax and Achilles. “Attack Cronos.”

The world flickers, bright and dark and hazy, and time jumps. 

He never strikes Cronos, but suddenly there’s a sword in Theseus’s hand, and the body lies bent and bleeding at his feet. Theseus’s head swims. Ajax frees the other captives from their cages, and Achilles helps Phyn stand; he would have collapsed after the battle, exhausted, like Phlaris did.

_ “I owe you a great debt, your highness,”  _ Phyn says to Theseus, faltering but earnest, a hand fisted in Achilles’ tunic for support. Blood is smeared across his face, one of his eyes clearly going dark with bruising, and Theseus’s heart hurts.  _ No,  _ he wants to say, _ no, you don’t, you’re not here, this isn’t you—  _

But before he can, the scene changes again, as if flipping through pages of the story.

They arrive at cave entrance of the prison, on the coast, and the salt spray of the ocean hisses at the rocks below. Achilles pulls the weapon from his back. “ _Take this,”_ he says. But Theseus meets his eyes, and it isn’t Achilles with the trident in his outstretched hand. 

It’s Marin. 

The wind tosses her black hair wildly, curls tangling with the thin gold chains she wears on her horns. She holds the trident out further, and there’s something apologetic in set of her mouth. _“It will help channel the divine in you.”_

The metal gleams in the cold moonlight, and Theseus’s hands tremble. “I’m not— I can’t—” 

At the time, he had been certain— irrationally so— that he wasn’t going to fight his father, that there could be any other outcome to the confrontation. Perhaps he should be grateful that Achilles knew better.

_ “May it serve as a light in dark places,” _ Marin murmurs, and presses the weapon into Theseus’s hands, gentle but insistent.

Theseus clutches at its now-familiar weight, and his farewell rises unbidden to his lips. “I’ll see you soon.” 

It’s a concession and a promise both. And it wasn’t true, he realizes with a grim pang. Not for Achilles. And maybe not for Marin either. She reaches out to clasp his arm, but before she can, Theseus feels the sick jolt of time shifting, the ground uneasy beneath his feet.

He takes in a hard breath— and the throne room swallows him. 

The vast hall is nearly as dark as the saltstained cave at this hour. Between the marble pillars, moonlight throws planes of silver illumination across his path, while his father sits atop his throne, limned in red magelight that throws his face into shadow.

Aethre lurks in the pools of darkness at the foot of the high dias, hardly more than a silhouette. At Theseus’s side, Ajax tenses at the sight of her. It’s easier and easier for Theseus to fall into his own role, to feel the way he did that night, and as his father surveys the room, terror grips his chest. 

He and Ajax reach the center of the room, and Theseus stops. He does not bow.

After a long moment, King Perseus’s voice crawls over them. _ “Aethre has told us what transpired in the prison.” _

Theseus chances another step towards him. “Father—” 

_ “What a terrible blow, to lose Cronos.”  _ Perseus sits back in his throne, impassive.  _ “Remind me, Theseus. Who killed him?” _

The words ought to come easily this time, but Theseus still hesitates. “I did.”

He’d done the right thing. He knew that then. He knows it now. So it seems like a cruel joke that he should still feel ashamed to admit it, that a buried childhood instinct to please his father survives in any part of him.

“I killed him,” Theseus repeats, and lifts his head. “He was torturing a man who’d done nothing wrong. I know the truth about the Black Order, father, I saw the plans in the library, I—”

_ “How strange.” _ Perseus interrupts him thoughtlessly, the words hard and level.  _ “We were told that the traitor Phlaris broke free of his restraints and fatally struck Cronos before escaping.” _

Theseus is forgetting how the story goes, lets himself be caught up short. Wary confusion coils in his stomach. “What?”

_ “And that it’s fortunate you and your friends were there, to aid Aethre.” _

He exchanges a glance with Ajax, and finds his own feelings mirrored there: whatever game his father is playing, he wants no part of it. Theseus shakes his head, advances again on the dias. “What the Order is trying to do is monstrous, father, how can you condone this? These are innocent people,  _ your _ people—” 

_ “You are still young, Theseus. We would deign to forgive a moment of poor judgement.”  _ Perseus shifts forward, into the light, and something pointed lurks in his features.  _ “I’ll ask again: who killed Cronos?” _

“I did!” Theseus presses on, almost an outburst, still not understanding. “You must know I did; but father, the Order—”

_ “THE ORDER,”  _ Perseus snarls, and the words ring cold off the walls, his composure fracturing, “Is  _ under my command. As are you.” _

“Then there’s been a mistake.” Something in Theseus breaks remembering that even at this point, he had been so convinced his father would see reason, or that there was some misunderstanding. He had been so blind for so long. What could he have done, if he’d investigated the Order sooner? Who else could he have saved? 

“There are plans for raids on the city and camps and—  _ genocide _ , against the lesser races.” Disbelief makes Theseus’s voice ragged. “You can’t have meant for this to happen. Tell me you didn’t.”

The king rises slowly from his throne, stalks to the edge of the dias. Theseus cringes, half expecting another flare of his temper. But when Perseus speaks again, it’s measured, slow.

_ “I am the rising sun and northern star of Waterdeep, the rule and the reason of this kingdom. The truth is what I say it is.” _ His gaze, hard and black as obsidian, roots Theseus in place as Perseus begins a slow descent towards him, down the steps.

_ “And I say that my son would not dare undermine my reign. My attempts to cure this kingdom of its  _ infestation _.” _

The horror of futility tightens around Theseus’s neck like a noose. “You speak madness.”

_ “So I will ask you one. More. Time.” _ Perseus comes to a halt before him, and moonlight throws their twin shadows over the Waterdhavian crest laid in the center of the floor.  _ “Who killed Cronos?” _

For a moment the world seems suspended, and with a surge of dread, Theseus wonders if this is the vision’s purpose: to diverge here, to show him the path he might have taken as an accessory to evil.

But the right words, the real ones, come to him, strong and sure. “I did.” 

Arethe shifts, and Ajax’s hand goes to his sword in answer, but Theseus fixes on his father, desperation choking his words. “And I’ll kill the rest of the Black Order if I must, if you don’t  _ stop this, _ father,  _ please— _ ”

Perseus’s expression shutters.  _ “Then you are not my son.” _

He draws his sword, and time moves too fast and too slow all at once.

The fight feels more like a dance, because Theseus remembers the steps. It lends a discordant elegance to his faltering, the pleas that go ignored, the bloom of pain against his ribs as he’s a moment too late to dodge a blow. Arethe and Ajax’s swords clash again and again, a terrible, too-loud ring in Theseus’s ears as he parries and stumbles. He refused to hurt his father, even then.

“Don’t do this,” he gets out, his wounds alight with pain, body aching from where Perseus threw him to the floor. The marble shines with his blood. “Please. What the Order is doing— you know it’s wrong, you  _ must _ know—”

_ “I will not ignore my destiny,”  _ He hisses, and brings his sword down over his head.  _ “Not for you.”  _

Theseus is only just able to throw the trident up in time to intercept the blow; his limbs tremble with the strain of holding his father back. Perseus looms above him, and Theseus finally sees the gleam in his eyes for what it is.  _ Insanity _ .

Theseus finds a foothold, summons all his strength to throw Perseus off. The metal of Perseus’s blade wails against the trident as they’re forced apart, and Theseus gets his bearings, but he isn’t quick enough. Perseus’s blade lands at his neck, cold and slick with blood. Theseus goes still, hands remaining on the trident.

_ “I have tried to teach you, Theseus. But you never learned.”  _ The strain of Perseus’s effort, his rage, makes his hand shake, the metal quivering against Theseus’s skin. _ “The hardest choices require the strongest wills.” _

Perseus’s shoulders are angled away in order to threaten him— if Theseus strikes now, he has an opening. Between the ribs, hard and fast. Something Achilles taught him. The thought should inspire horror, but with a sword at his throat, with each of their deaths in the past as well as the future, it’s only inevitable, a tall black wave that crests far above Theseus.

Something thrums in his body, in the trident, something bright and ringing, louder and louder until it seems like he might shatter. The last time he knelt here, the first time divinity gathered under his skin, it was the single most terrifying thing he’d ever felt. Now it’s a welcome helplessness.

“You’re right,” he says simply.  _ I’m sorry, _ he wants to say, too, but it’s far too late to change the story. 

A cry of wrath at his lips, Perseus draws his weapon back to strike. Theseus thrusts the trident upward and lets the current take him. 

The throne room  _ illuminates _ .

Power surges through him and his father’s scream reverberates in his ears. And in the blinding light, time skips again, only a few moments. 

Theseus stumbles on the sudden loss of magic, gasps for breath. The throne room is dark, silent, and his hand aches from gripping the trident. The king’s body lies facedown, turned away; Theseus can see only blonde-gray hair and his unnatural stillness. His crown, fallen from his head, lies in the blood pooled beside him, and ribbons of red reach along the seams in the marble.

Theseus applies pressure to one of his own wounds and staggers to his feet, pain lancing through him with every movement. He’s never hurt so much. He’s never felt so numb. 

_ “You have to go.” _

Perhaps there is no shock left in Theseus, because when he turns and sees Rekhien in his friend’s place, sword in hand, it almost seems natural. Of course he should be here, expression drawn with concern for Theseus that the real Rekhien has certainly never felt.

“Not without you,” Theseus says, and it comes out hoarse.

Rekhien shakes his head, jaw clenched.  _ “You have to. They’re coming, Theseus, I can’t—” _ A distant shout rings through the palace, the sounds of alarm haphazardly being risen. Rekhien grips his arm and draws him close, and panic threads through his voice.  _ “I’ll cover your escape and follow you to Daggerford. We’ll figure out our next move there, but for now you have to—” _

Theseus wonders now if Ajax knew he would never make it out of the city. If the promise had been a lie for Theseus’s sake. 

_ “Daggerford.”  _ Rekhien repeats, barely more than a desperate whisper in the dark.  _ “I’ll meet you there.”  _

_ You will, _ Theseus thinks. He looks at Rekhien, at the frenzied green eyes and the old scar across his nose, and wonders if he’s losing his mind.  _ You did. _

And again he’s pulled from time and space. But this time the scene can’t settle: there’s a flash of a tavern, of the barkeep barking at a blue tiefling for her horns, drowned out by the piercing ring of a church bell echoing through an empty town. Kella Darkhope’s furitive glance, a torch in the darkness, a bloody cloak affixed to a thin wooden door. Faster and faster they come, settings or images or just the shout of a name, the grip of a cold wind, the burn of firebrandy, the weight of the axe in his hand. 

The sensations begin to blur and vibrate until they nearly hurt. There’s a cry of  _ dragon! _ and a wolf’s howl and he’s no longer certain where the edges of his body are, if the glinting in his vision is the sun or a weapon or the world breaking apart. Phantasms of his friends, alive and dead, flicker before Theseus, and he’s lost the ability to divine if they’re real or false, memory or illusion, prophesy or heresy; they build, dizzy and bright and terrible and fast, too fast— 

Suddenly there is the overwhelming sensation of 

A hand 

on his shoulder. 

And everything goes perfectly still.

Something  _ pulls _ him, and he breaks back into a single, solid plane like surfacing from beneath ocean waves, takes just that same gasp of air. He falls and finds firm stone beneath him, unmoving, solid, as his stomach heaves and his mind reels.

“I would be careful of what you touch.” The voice is Tyr’s, dark and strong as iron. “You are still a mortal in a land of gods.”

Theseus is back in the garden, on his knees beside the crystal, struggling for breath, every muscle trembling furiously. He gets the distinct sense he’s been gone only moments. “What—” He chokes on the words, tries again. “What was that?”

“The Prisms are meant to  _ illuminate, _ as all prisms are. I use them when I require clarity. Justice cannot exist without judgement.” Tyr considers him, and curiosity seems to win out over stoicism. “What did you see?”

Theseus looks at the Prism, and his reflecions look back at him, true, now: leather armor, unkempt hair, sunken eyes.

“My father,” he says. “And my friends.”

Theseus’s memories churn too close to the surface still, a dark current that threatens to swell and drown him. When he closes his eyes he sees Marin screaming into a dirty gag, blood crusting in Phyn’s braids, Rekhien falling limp with his tattoed hand still outstretched.

He blinks through the sudden heat of tears as he propels himself to his feet. “Please, lord Tyr, they—”

Tyr gives a laborious exhale. “I am not concerned with your friends, Theseus; I am concerned with  _ you _ .”

“Then what is it you want?!” Theseus snaps, as something fractures inside him. He could be patient from within the fog of death, but now— wrung out and weak with a thousand emotions warring for a place in his chest— he can’t wait anymore. The others still need him, dead or not, and either Tyr will help or he won’t.

“You’ve brought me here for a reason,” Theseus presses on, the words barely restrained. “What was it? Why answer my prayer?”

Tyr folds his hands before him. For a moment, Theseus fears he’s provoked the god’s anger, but after a moment, he merely turns and sweeps past Theseus, seeming to gaze out at the endless line of ocean that extends beyond his gardens. A crescent moon gleams low over the water, reflected on distant waves.

“Tell me.” Tyr muses. “What use have you made of my axe?”

The question takes Theseus aback. He swallows. “Killed frost giants, mostly.”

“Mostly,” Tyr hums. “And the dwarven king you  _ stole _ it from.”

A bolt of white-hot shame lances Theseus to the core. “Lord Tyr, I—”

“The Leviathan Axe was a gift to my dwarven acolytes in the mountain for use keeping order and meteing justice in my name. Yet you sought it for yourself, claimed you would be my champion in your world and use it to strike down the cruel and unjust.” Finally Tyr turns back, and his dark, eyeless gaze bears down on Theseus. “So I ask: have you?”

“I—”

“Or were those empty promises spoken in pursuit of power for yourself?” The words are even, powerful, and he doesn’t shout so much as they increase in volume, like the pounding of a drum, until they resonate in Theseus’s bones, threatening to completely overhwelm him. “ _ Are you my champion, Theseus of Waterdeep, or are you a child with a toy that does not belong to him? _ ”

“I— it wasn’t like that at all.” His voice cracks miserably, and Theseus doesn’t realize he’s crying until tears track wet down his face. “I’ve tried to do the right thing. I tried to save my friends. I killed my own father for the atrocities he committed, I—”

_ “I know, Theseus.” _ Suddenly he’s close— through Theseus’s blurry vision, Tyr is all he can see, and his presence is calming rather than terrifying, now. The kind of mercurial turn only a divine being can make. 

Theseus is so tired, and so broken, and there is nothing in him to resist when Tyr reaches out and tilts Theseus’s face upwards, towards his. “You are not without my blessing,” the god says gently.

It’s a comfort that comes too late. Theseus lets out a laugh that might be a sob, and more tears slip from his eyes. “None of it mattered. I still failed. I wasn’t strong enough to stop him. Or to save them.”

“No, you weren’t.” It’s not cruel, only truthful. “But you could be.”

It takes Theseus a moment to process the words. “What?”

“It has been a long time since a paragon of mine walked your lands.” Tyr releases him and looks again towards the ocean, drawing himself up to his full height. “But I have no use for princes and kings, Theseus. To be born anew is to die first and let your past die with you.”

Theseus’s mind is too full to comprehend his meaning. “Lord Tyr, I don’t understand.”

“It’s as your little blue friend says: power has a price.” He makes a slight gesture to his missing hand. “As a just god, I am telling you mine.”

Paragon. Power. Princes and kings. Even through his fear, his grief, his guilt, Theseus begins to understand.

“Will you give it up— your throne, your name, the chance to rest eternal— to ensure your friends’ safety?” Tyr asks him, and his voice is as deep and resolute as thunder.

_ The hardest choices require the strongest wills. _

But like killing his father, it doesn’t feel like a hard choice, not really. It feels inevitable. Like killing his father, he knows immediately, innately, that he’ll find a way to cope with whatever comes of this, because what else could he possibly do?

There are far worse deals he would make to save them. To save himself.

“Yes.” He says breathlessly. “I give it up. All of it.”

Tyr’s mouth tugs into the suggestion of a smile. “I thought you might.”

The garden rustles around them, stirred by some magical breeze. Tyr’s voice grows resonant again, and when he speaks, Theseus imagines the whole world hears them.

“Then I hereby sentence you, Theseus, son of Perseus, to be not of mortal planes, but of heavenly ones.” Tyr lifts his good hand and makes a kind of anointing gesture, as if marking him. “No longer are you of Zervas blood. You are now of my body, my  _ Vitali _ .” 

The wind picks up. Tyr places his hand again on Theseus’ shoulder, and this time the sensation reverberates through his whole being, a weight, a mounting pressure. Tyr’s voice echoes in Theseus’s mind as much as in his ears—  _ “And I send you back to the world of men, to judge in my name those who would commit injustices upon that realm and enact upon them— _

The wind howls now, and they’re no longer standing amongst the flowers and crystals but along the cliffside, Theseus’s heels on the edge. Tyr grows brighter and brighter, the edges of his being less distinct, his words vital like the clang of a smith’s hammer— 

“— _ My justice _ .”

And with that, he shoves Theseus off the cliff. 

Theseus falls, and  _ falls _ , and in the heartbeat before he wakes up— he could swear he starts flying.

  
  


***

  
  


Accordingly, he doesn’t wake so much as  _ land _ .

He jolts into conciousness, thrown into a sitting position by sheer force, as if he’s slammed into something. His head spins too violently for him to get his bearings, but there are voices, scrambling, a rocking sensation and the sound of wood creaking— 

“Theseus!”

“Nine hells, the boy actually woke up.”

“Phyn, stop— stop the horses—”

His heart hammers in his chest, and he blinks furiously, trying to orient himself. Someone throws open a door; light streams in and he lurches towards it on instinct, flailing as he stumbles out and to his feet.

The sun is hellishly bright. He can’t see, can’t think, can barely stand; the only thing he can do is gulp down the fresh air, his muscles protesting every movement. Something touches his shoulder, and he whirls to see Marin step back at his reaction, Rekhien close behind her. Through the blinding light, he makes out the shape of the wagon, and the green of Phyn’s tunic, running towards them— 

“Whoa— hey—” Marin speaks gently, her hands held up, as if he’s a spooked horse she’s trying to soothe. He realizes he’s panting in ragged, agonized lungfuls, and he makes an effort to calm his breathing, to master himself enough to speak.

“Marin?”

“Theseus?” Her yellow eyes are wide. “Are you okay?”

He barely understands the question, as his memories and awareness haltingly weave together. He should be the one asking that, shouldn’t he? He was supposed to save  _ them _ , Tyr was supposed to give him the power to defeat Chuz.

Shit.  _ Chuz _ .

“What happened?” He croaks. “Where’s Chuz?”

Rekhien, Marin and Phyn exchange glances.

“Chuz is dead,” Rekhien says carefully. “You… obliterated him.”

“You’ve been asleep for five days,” Marin supplies, and bites her lip. “We were worried you wouldn’t—“

“How do you feel?” Phyn looks at him appraisingly, as if he’s checking him for injuries. “You look healed, but you were pretty rough when we hauled you out of there.”

But suddenly Theseus can’t speak to answer the question. The three of them stand together in the sunlight before him, bright and safe and  _ right _ , this time, and all of the tangled tensions in him are swept away by a flood of relief so desperate it aches. The phantom versions of them he saw in the crystal, playing parts that weren’t theirs, were pale shadows in comparison. His throat burns with sudden unshed tears.

“Theseus?” Marin asks, voice wavering.

There was never any doubt of what he’d do for them. For Rekhien’s dark enthusiasm, Phyn’s gentle curiosity, Marin’s playful cleverness. But to feel it again, the certainty that he’s where he should be as long as it’s with them, for them, between them and the monsters— it’s too much for words.

So Theseus responds in the only way that he can think to. He pulls Marin close and wraps her in a hug.

She throws her arms around his waist in answer, comfort radiating from her grip. He’s never held her before, not like this, and even a thousand miles from the ocean, she smells of saltwater. It reminds him of home.

“I’m fine,” He says, muffled into her hair, an afterthought, and Marin gives a broken laugh. 

Phyn clasps Theseus’s shoulder, grinning, and Theseus loops an arm around him without thinking, pulling him in. Lulu yips and prances at their knees, and Theseus looks above Marin and Phyn’s heads to Rekhien, an armslength away, making a face at the three of them. 

Theseus disentangles his other arm from Marin and extends a hand. Tears blur his vision. Rekhien’s mouth opens like he’s going to say something, object or make a joke, maybe, but then he swallows. His expression softens, and he takes Theseus’s hand. Rekhien lets himself be led into the embrace, and Theseus rests a cheek against Marin’s horn, holds them tightly.

He’ll tell them he made a deal with a god. He’ll tell them they’ll never have to worry about his past ever again. But for now, this is all he wants.


End file.
